Tales from Naboo
by Kam I Am
Summary: Stories of valor, last stands, and mutated ewoks. A collection of oneshots and miniseries related to Naboo and its many inhabitants.
1. FtO, AtN - Pt 1

**Forgiving the Old, Accepting the New**

**Part One: Of Escorts and Hesitation**

Never let your wingmate down.

That's something they tell you a lot in Theed's Royal Flight Academy. If your wingmate wants you on their six, you're on their six. If they're calling for coverfire, you better be spraying down every meter of visible space with your cannons.

Your wingmate has your back, and you have theirs.

It's kind of like getting married in a way, minus any of the good perks. Sure you can convince them to give you a ride home, or maybe to pick up your tab at the bar every once in awhile, but those weren't the perks I wanted. Not with my wingmate. She was eight years my senior, but I'd be lying if I told you I didn't have the galaxy's biggest crush on her. She was always everything I wanted to be. She had the prestige, the commendations, and at least six times my flight experience. Above all else though, she had my trust.

That's not even something I can say about myself.

It's been four months since it happened, and I still miss her to death.

My name is Rhys Dallows, Bravo Ten of Naboo's Royal Flight Squadron, and I let my wingmate down.

* * *

><p>It was supposed to be a simple in and out - escort duty. Get our majesty to the dropzone and let the T-14 hyperdrive generator on her silver hunk of a craft do the rest.<p>

Later flight records would lead one to believe there were only two escort crafts trudging there along with her. But I know better than that, there were six. Six pilots, with five of us soon to be condemned to death within our steel coffins. How do I know all this? Because I was there.

We're in orbit now, having just broke through Naboo's outer atmosphere. If I look back right now I could probably still just make out the glint of the Royal City of Theed, the shimmering dew of the planet's vast green fields. But I don't look back, I never look back. Deep Space opens its hellish maw to me, and I accept it with a reluctant sense of duty.

Then again, if Hell actually looks anything like this I'd happily be first in line. This was well beyond your average black and white starfield, and the fact that seven craft, the leading one silver, elongated, and tubular, the others yellow, chrome-tipped, and sleek, were gracing its space was only one reason. The others being the cascading lights that shimmered down from all sides to meet us on our continued journey. These lights were courtesy of the three moons that ringed Naboo's orbit, mirroring the true light that was coming from the incandescent and seemingly unpigmented sun some light-years away. The only other way to get a sight half this nice is with the use of some really heavy deathsticks. Not that I, an "esteemed" pilot of the prestigious Bravo Flight, would know anything about that.

My blue orbs take in the view, and I manage to catch them reflecting off of the transparisteel of the cockpit's canopy window. Looking closer I can spy the face they give way too. It's a face I can't recognize anymore, but at one point it was mine. I don't feel any older now than I did then, but I sure as hell look it.

There's not much more time to gawk at myself though, not with the cockpit's sound receptors crackling to life.

"Comm check," Bravo Leader's gruff voice echoes from in front of us, inside the cushioned interior of the Queen's Royal Transport. We'd all always joke about how how the boss was too used to living the life of luxury inside that spacious cabin to ever come back down into the cockpit of one of our N-1's, but you'd know that wasn't true if ever you heard the way he sounds in here, it's the closest thing one can get to a caged Rancor on Naboo.

Bravos Seven, Eight, and Nine all check themselves in, math's not my strong suit, but I know it's my turn.

"Bravo Ten, standing by."

There's an awkward sort of pause after I check in. The kind of pause I was fearfully expecting.

"Surprised you managed to get out of the landing bay this morning," Bravo Nine notes, finally breaking the silence to some scattered laughter.

I've always hated Bravo Nine.

"He'll be alright," Bravo Seven replies before I can raise my voice to respond. "He's got rocket fuel in his veins, just like the right of us."

I can feel my face turn slightly red at the fact that someone else thought they'd have to come to my defense, but then again, Bravo Seven was my wingmate. Maybe she just didn't want to let me down. Though even with her vote of approval, the occasional chuckle still registering over the comm channel tell me the others still aren't exactly impressed by her endorsement of me.

Why would they be? I'm about as green as Bravo Flight recruits come. My biggest claim to fame came during a recent pirate attack near the space station TFP-9. An attack where eight of my twelve squadmates perished, and multiple enemy fighters escaped. Not exactly a mission logbook screaming of excellence.

Still, Bravo Seven was there too, and she saw something in me that made her request my immediate transfer to Bravo Flight. I spy her seating within the N-1 closest to mine and venture a glance over to her. As if sensing that I'm looking at her, her head suddenly jerks over to meet me. Silently cursing, I immediately try and play it off as nothing, looking back down and pretending to press buttons on my forward control panel, but when I slowly look back up I see she's still looking at me, this time with a smile and a friendly thumbs up to accompany her. I return the favor.

Pretty soon we're setting up a six-man defensive perimeter around the Queen's Royal Transport. The formation's fairly routine for me at this point. Two fighters take point, another two split up and take port and starboard, and the final two - me and Essara - lock down the rear. Though with the way I was already struggling to keep up with the others, I should've known that the day wouldn't end well.

With not much else to do on our journey along to the Hyperspace rendezvous point, I find my eyes drifting towards the circularly pronged control layout shining up at me from the dashboard. The instrumentation is split into three different sections: Ship readouts, orbital scanners, and astromech translations. I tend to look at that last one the least - I don't need any help from a droid, especially not the new one Bravo Flight had me pair up with. His name's Wrench - a name he inherited from his last owner, but one I don't mind keeping much. He looks the same as all the rest, blue, white, domed head, all that, but some mechanic must've left a bolt too loose when it came time to program the thing's personality.

Another burble of whistles and noise sound over the ship's private radio frequency, and I know it can only be courtesy of the blasted thing.

"What?" I gripe, glancing over to the leftward panel to decipher the droid's meaning.

**_Quit exchanging glances with your fellow meatbag and pay attention to your scanners._**

Threatening to eject the irritating droid, I do as commanded, quickly shooting my gaze downwards again to spy a red blip that fizzles out just as I soon as I thought I saw it.

At first I brush it off as nothing, maybe just a drifting satellite that swiped across the edge of my scanners, but then it _comes back_. I keep my eyes trained on it this time, watching as it pulls in slightly, staying for a moment before receding back off out of range. Almost as soon as I'm about to raise a voice in concern there's word from the Royal Transport - and that already confirms my worst fears.

"Long range scanners just picked up on something, keep your heads up, chatter down, and cannons primed," Bravo Leader's seasoned voice orders to a slew of affirmative tones.

From my vantage point at the rear of the guard I can just make out a lone starfighter now slowly approaching us through the shadowy veil of space.

"Unidentified craft, power down or you will be fired upon," Bravo Leader relays forward, speaking in a clear and commanding tone as the ship drifts ever closer.

We wait a few moments, expecting a reply, praying for anything but a fight, yet no response comes. I keep my eyes trained on the singular craft, wondering what game its pilot must be playing at.

"Repeat," Bravo Leader echoes again, his voice more grave this time. "Power down or prepa-"

"SAAAAHOOOZUUU!" A snarling battlecry interrupts, ripping across the public comm channel, the speaker's voice dripping as much spit into my ear as it does noise.

From the little Rodese I know, "sahozu" roughly translates to "vengenance", vengenace against who or what, I don't know. And really, I'm not in all that big of a hurry to find out. I keep an ear to our flight's private comm channel, busily trying to triangulate the enemy's quickly dispersing flight pattern on my orbital scanner as I do so. It becomes increasingly hard, however, as my scanner is no longer home to one red blip, but several.

"Multiple approaching enemies... Sixteen, twenty-two, twenty-eight... _Thirty-two starfighters incoming!"_

_Half a wing!? _I think alarmingly to myself, now busily setting cannon power to forward maximum.

"Scanners must be malfunctioning, no way they could hide that many away from us in plain sight," Bravo Eight suggests, typically the go-to voice of reasoning in escalating situations such as this.

But the sight forming in my viewport negates his idea completely, mismatched hulls of all shapes and sizes overtaking the star speckled view I had been admiring just moments before.

You're probably wondering how they managed to hide thirty two starcraft right in front of us, I know I still am. My best guess is they invested in some really good cloaking devices, one's that were probably really kriffing expensive. That was bad news for us. It meant they really, _really_ wanted the Queen dead. More than the average trigger happy we run into, anyways.

I'm not interested in the enemy's stock worth right now though, all I know is that their craft are making a bee line for the Queen's ship and I've got superiors barking orders at me left and right.

"They're swarming us! What the frack do we do?"

"Diangos all over the place! We've gotta take 'em down."

"What about those gunboats they have? We can't leave those alone!"

There's miscommunication and confusion running rampant through the upper ranks, nobody can agree on a plan of attack when we've got ourselves outnumbered thirty two to six. We have them outclassed in talent, of that I had no doubts. But they caught us off guard, and sometimes that's all it takes.

I can hear Bravo Seven growl in annoyance, clearly none too pleased at the political debate our battle plan has devolved into.

"For Kriff's sake. What we _need_ to be doing is focusing our cannons on those Morningstars, their concussion missiles will tear the Queen's ship into scrap if we don't act soon. Let the Diangos take their potshots for now, we can play clean-up later," she informs, the air of a veteran clear in her voice.

Her confident nature, along with the fact that she was the Executive Officer of the Squadron, gave her a great deal of sway, enough to convince the other hotshot pilots that it would be a good idea to listen up.

In total compliance with the orders, we break formation from the Royal Transport and quickly align our crafts at varying degree. It's a standard attack formation that we've run to perfection during our intensive simulation runs. The throttles on each of our craft are hit simultaneously, sending us lurching forward, slowly approaching our max speed of 1,100 meters per hour as the closing space between our charging forces becomes increasingly smaller. Soon there's no space at all, and our golden daggers are jousting emerald bolts with their graying hull's crimson, each one vying for dominance.

I feel a bracket of their missiles clip my leftward tail, deflected only by the stoutness of my shielding systems. Cursing inwardly, I fight the urge to break formation, staying in long enough to muster a direct hit on the nearest craft's bulbous cockpit. I have to shove my fighter into a tight tailspin to avoid colliding with the pilot's quickly deprecating corpse.

I'm about to fall in line and ready another strafing run with the others when my comm sputters to life again.

"Rhys, I want you and me running attack formation Zeta-One-One-Three-Eight on those Z-95 Headhunters. Now!" Bravo Seven chimes, more urgent than I've ever heard her sound.

_"Headhunters?"_ I murmured aloud, tracking the indicated fighters by eye to their location in the corner of my viewport.

Was there something she had purposefully not told the others? Surely the Z-95s with their dual cannons and meager torpedo count weren't as great a threat as their one man army counterparts, the Morningstar. Still, if there was something she was leaving ambiguous she was doing it for a reason, probably expecting me to do the same. I wasn't about to let her down.

"Copy that, Bravo Seven," I say as I break free from the corner of the rest of the squadron's formation, more gratefully than reluctantly. Banking hard to starboard, I find the scenery waiting to greet me there no less welcoming than what I just left, enemy fighters brimming from side to side.

My target reticule starts sweeping the area for the nearest Z-95 Headhunter, an Incom Corp produced hallmark, perhaps with one of the least inspired designs I'd seen passed as an excuse for a starfighter. If the N-1 was the definition of elegance as touted by its Nubian makers, the Headhunter was its degenerate cousin. That's how I try and justify things anyways, these mercenaries weren't just committing treason against the Queen, they were committing treason against the long held Nabooian tradition of refined starfighter architecture.

The diagnostic reports Wrench had been furiously churning out for me proved just how archaic their ships really were. One hit to the winding compression tubes that hung from either side of the cockpit, and it's a slow death by frigid air. It's a different but equally deadly end for the circular filtration tanks that peek out from the bottom of each of their craft. Direct hit on one of those bad boys and a pilot's head will collapse in from the sheer vacuum of space. There were a lot of ways for them to die up here, a lot of things that could go wrong, but it went both ways.

That's what a wingmate was for. To make sure everything went right for you, and that nothing went right for the enemy.

With that comforting knowledge on mind I swing in close to Bravo Seven now, ready to put attack formation Zeta-1138 to its proper use. Just as soon as we're side by side though, we're forced to barrel out, running an evasive maneuver that barely saves us from being cannon fodder. I can feel the thunder of a Morningstar's erupting missiles clap near the point I just was - clearly my other squadmates weren't getting their job done. And even with me speeding away from the scene at over a thousand meters per hour, I can feel the racketing touch of flamed shrapnel scratch against the aft of my ship. While I'm vainly praying for the enemy's missiles to have crossed patterns and resulted in friendly fire, Wrench is there to tell me the opposite.

_**Bravo Nine has just gone offline.**_

One more shining beacon of green has left my orbital sensors, leaving only three in its departure: Me, Bravo Seven, and the Royal Transport. Where the other's had gone, I had no idea, their deaths lost to the fray of battle. I'm hoping beyond hope that the salvage team that comes by later will be able to recover something, but I know that the truth is already staring me down in the viewport - four yellow coffins have scattered themselves across the emptying starfield.

As with most things in a dogfight, I don't get a second chance to look at them. The horizons are busily blazing past me as I spiral into a tight corkscrew, my ship's inertial compensators working overtime to keep up with the demand, bolts of crimson flaring past me in all direction. If that wasn't enough to contend with, Bravo Seven is shrieking at me to rendezvous by the Queen, making it clear that our final stand is soon to come.

I level out the ship, greeted to another barrage of lasers impacting with my rearward shielding as I do so. Ignoring the protests of my hull, I shove the throttle down as far as it'll go, the stars becoming pinstripes all around me as the Queen's heap of silver grows in size. Bravo Seven's on my right, her speed more than matching mine as we come closer to the conical craft, closer, and closer... Until it vanishes from both our sights.

Shock bathes my face, and it should be pretty obvious as to why. Ships don't just disappear. I'm fearfully thinking of all the worst possibilities, but Wrench is quick to inform me the Queen has successfully made her jump to lightspeed.

About time.

No sigh of relief comes, however. Not with nineteen blips of red still checkering my orbital scanners, closing in on us in all directions. I manage another glance over to Bravo Seven, to my surprise she's right there to return it. We remain silent. Beyond the brief spewing of orders earlier on it dawned on me that we hadn't said a word to each other throughout this entire ordeal, almost as if we didn't need to talk. Both of us knew the gig already. She had my back, and I was supposed to have hers.

That all seemed to fall apart so fast.

As soon as I find a moment to acknowledge the silence I can hear Wrench screaming something at me over and over. I bother to look this time, his shrill whirling more annoying than usual. I'm not greeted with a snarky bulletin though, not this time.

**_Shrapnel has pierced your rightward air tank, oxygen levels rapidly decreasing._**

Curses are flung at a speed I can't fully acknowledge, it quickly dawning on me that Bravo Nine has left me with one last cruel joke to contend with - this being the scattered scraps of his ship. Just as the Z-95 had its deadly shortcomings, so it seemed the N-1 had its. Elegance came at a price, and it appeared to be shoddy armoring around the air tanks.

"Stabilize," I'm quick to order the droid, appreciative of its presence for the first that I can remember that day. "Seal what we've got left in the other tank, and lower the dispersion rate by 33%."

System readouts begin to level out upon the command, but the astromech's final message leave me with grim implications.

_**We are left with four minutes of oxygen.**_

Four minutes. That wasn't even enough time to get back to surface level, let alone fight our way through a convoy of vengeful mercenaries. Little did I know, I wouldn't have to.

Their ships are upon us faster than my scanners can fully calculate, cannons pounding what's left of my depleting shields. My plan was to go out with a blaze of glory, my full load of proton torpedoes insuring its reality. Soon enough I'm whipping here and there, tails of electric blue streaking from my launcher tubes, some hitting, most missing.

I'm not firing to kill anymore though, I'm just firing not to die.

That's something I've always been good at.

Not long after this my final comm exchange begins to crackle to life.

"Bravo Ten! Can't shake this one off my tail!"

Thrusting my head up to meet her I'm quickly realizing that by "one", Bravo Seven really means three. Slicing upwards, I expand the scope of my cannons to include all three graying hulls.

"I've got a shot!"

"Take it... Bravo Ten, take the shot!"

But I don't take the shot, I hesitate. The enemy doesn't.

"No! ESSARA!" Breaking callsign as I see flame expunge all that sets in front of me.

At the same time a furious blast from somewhere behind me forces my head forward, smacking it straight into the reinforced glass of the cockpit's window. Despite the shock absorbing helmet that graces my skull I can still feel something cool and crimson oozing from my head. All the while things are spinning violently out control, twisting and turning on an axis I couldn't hope to decipher. The pinpricks of stars merging into ragged lines as I whip by them at an impossible speed. The world starts growing dark, with me only now realizing that the vents on either side of my cockpit are no longer blowing in breathable air. I feel the edges starting to close in on me, consciousness beginning to fail.

But I fight it. This is truly my worst regret. I fight the merciful grip of unconsciousness, desperately trying to defy what reality is shoving in my face. I fight it, and open my eyes to witness the horrors that have been patiently waiting to greet me.

The internal organs of my wingmate have splatter painted themselves all across the vast canvas of space, some bounding off the thick glass of my viewport, others skewering themselves on what remains of her ship. I take several deep inhales of depleting air at the sight, fighting the overwhelming urge to vomit. Moments ago she had been a living, breathing person. Now she's a bag of depleting meat and bone drifting aimlessly through this careless unpressurized vacuum.

This is about time for the sudden realization to hit, and it hits hard.

I let my wingmate down, and the failure is on show for me to see in all its gory detail.

It's a nightmare I carry with me every time I step into that hangar, every time I set within that cockpit, and every time I put on that same battered flight helmet.

It's the same nightmare that plagues my mind as I wake up.


	2. FtO, AtN - Pt 2

**Forgiving the Old, Accepting the New**

**Part Two: Of Caf and Partnerships**

**Naboo**

**Theed Apartment Complex**

**32 ABY**

**(Three months after the Invasion of Naboo)**

Rhys had awoken in the familiar fashion, sweat drenching his face, hands balled into fists, a bellow of terror held only at bay by his hoarsed gulps for air. He forced himself to remain still upon the realization that he was truly awake, his heart still pounding beneath the bedsheets, quietly telling himself the same thing he had on every other occasion this had occurred.

_Just a dream._

Truthfully, he knew the horrors that greeted him in sleep were likely pedestrian in comparison to some of the others that visited the galaxy's trillions of denizens every night, but every time he tried to convince himself of this he'd find his mind drifting to those last panicked moments, his hesitation... His failure, and the grotesque results that had come with it.

Rhys found himself shivering immediately thereafter, at first thinking it the cause of the mental image, but a sudden breeze blowing across his face quickly contradicted that notion. He cast away the single bed covering he had been clutching tightly to himself, shuffling across his tiled floors to the-half open window across the room.

Peering out over the window sill, the sight that awaited him outside made him appreciate the fact that he had decided to get up. Naboo at night was every bit as gorgeous as it was during the day, even moreso in Rhys' opinion. During the day, the planetary hub that was Theed was rampant with tourists and onlookers, all coming to appreciate its limestoned architecture, scaling walls, domes, and ornately painted windows. At night, the city fell empty of its usual populace, instead inhabited by quadducks, voorpaks, and even the occasional tusk cat, clearly an open invitation for wildlife to coexist with that which Naboo's architects had constructed.

These weren't sights Rhys witnessed often, typically too occupied within the confines of a starfighter cockpit high above to appreciate them, but they were savored whenever he did. Yet it seemed his time to do so would be cut short again, this time by an electronic buzzing near his bedside. Assuming it was the morning alarm, he quickly swatted the chronoalarm to the off position, only to realize that the device had never been on in the first place. Another blurbing of noise told him it was instead the beeping of his datapad that demanded his attention. The bluish glow from the device giving new life to his otherwise darkened bedroom.

Grabbing the hand-sized tablet, Rhys soon found himself staring without staring. The swirl of letters and shapes on the datapad's newly sent mission briefing having already lost themselves to his uncomprehending mind. The nightmare he had just witnessed was nothing in comparison to the one sketched out on the device before him, courtesy of Bravo Leader. A joint flight drill... with a Gungan pilot.

For three days he had drawn out schemes to get himself out of this mess waiting to happen: sickness, jury duty, kaadu burger induced coma. _Anything_.

Yet the early morning had come without event, and the twenty two year old space pilot found himself standing in front of the locked blastdoors of the hangar bay, cup of caf in hand. His blue-eyed gaze reluctantly met the retinal scanner on the entry's durasteel side, eliciting a hiss from its inner mechanism before releasing the door latch with an aging squeak.

Stepping into the hub of activity that was the Royal Hangar Bay was generally a cause for excitement, but now it was all Rhys could do to not turn tail and run. Though he quickly came to the realization that there was no one he would actually be running from. At 0500 hours the Hangar Bay was as still as a snoozing ewok, although nowhere near as quiet. This was due in part to a lone mechanic on the northward wall. A mechanic who just happened to be one of his better friends, and current loudest maker of noise, courtesy of the heavy duty drill he was wielding... One that was being used to tear his N-1 starfigher apart panel by panel.

"What the - Reti, what the hell do you think you're doing?!" Rhys called out from the other half of the complex, already considering revoking the mechanic's "better friend" status.

No response, just more loud drill noises.

That wasn't going to do, there was no way Rhys would continue to allow his ship to be gutted without proper explanation, even if it was by a mechanic that he - for better or worse - trusted with his life. He stormed across the hangar's well-waxed floors, the clack of his polished boots droned out by the unending whir of tools meeting durasteel. On the way he had passed by a half dozen similarly yellow and chrome painted N-1 starfighters, a series of lengthy cobble pillars interspersed between each ship's alcove, the columns supporting the hangar's structure for three more stories with each level holding another outfit of similar modeled ships.

Finally upon the mechanic's working place he was forced to crouch down to meet the worker face to face.

"Reti!" His voice bouncing back and forth between the floor's granite tile and his ship's metallic hull.

A soot-covered Toydarian quickly turned his way, a hooked snout underlining his blueish visage.

"Yeah?" Reti asked, annoyance clear in his voice.

"Why the frack are you tearing my ship apart?"

"Engine maintenance, remember? You were whining about some 'squeaky noise' a couple days back - found a diced up mynock in the central valve. This was maintenance _you_ asked me to do, Rhys. Look, even Wrench remembered," the Toydarian responded, jabbing his three-clawed hand back in the direction of the nearby droid.

"Oh... my bad," Rhys apologized sheepishly, nodding as the blue and white patterned astromech sent its usual snarky beeped greeting his way. He turned to Reti again and said, "I blame the time of day... And the lack of caf." Rhys admitted the last part with a grin, shaking his mostly full beverage.

"I could go for a cup o' caf myself..." Reti admitted with yearning, rubbing bloodshot eyes with the hand that wasn't covered in oil.

"You're in luck," Rhys beamed, revealing a second caffeinated beverage in his other hand. Reti didn't hold back his surprise, quickly swooping up from his position beneath the craft with his pair of tattered wings, greedily accepting the cup as he did so.

Rhys hoped the gesture would be enough to ease over his earlier outburst, but decided another apology was his best chance of assurance.

"Listen Reti, about all that shouting a second ago..."

The Toydarian shrugged it off between bouts of slurping.

"That's alright, between that and all the barking Bravo Leader does at me I think I've gotten used to it, starting to feel kinda therapeutic actually. And besides, I probably wouldn't want anyone touching my ship without permission either," Reti responded, nodding up to the second floor of the hangar bay where a long wing-spanned junk freighter, dubbed the _Zoomer_, was taking up a slab of space regularly occupied by two N-1 starfighters. It was all the young pilot could do to contain his amusement at the sight.

"That's probably because your the only one who'd-" Rhys paused as Reti's bulging eyes went stern,"possibly be able to fly that... _marvel _in the realm of aeronautics."

"Good save."

Despite the bout of good-natured laughter they shared at this exchange, Rhys was quickly looking for a way to shift the conversation in a new direction, opting to use the topic piece that lay before them.

"So, you've got all this stuff off... How's she looking under the hood?" Rhys asked, gesturing towards the dismantled collection of golden hull coverings that lay scattered around his ship.

"Tip top, as usual," Reti answered back with a gleam. "Though you _are_ gonna have to clear out that cargo hold eventually, you've still got fireworks in there from the Festival of Light, and that was two months ago."

The twenty two year old responded to the statement with a shrug of his own.

"I'm saving 'em for next year... Or a rainy day, whichever comes first."

And with weather as nice as Naboo's it was a fair question to ask. Still, his three and a half foot friend didn't seem wholly sold on the idea.

"Riiiiight. Well, beyond that there's really nothing to complain about. I'm just gonna crack open a fuel canister, fill her up, and you should be all ready to go."

Nodding gratefully, Rhys found himself standing up and drifting over to let his gloved hand meet the chrome metallic bow of his nearby starfighter, now perched slightly upwards with a jack so Reti could begin refueling from a power hatch on the belly of the craft. Still focused on the ship's bow, he found it cool to the touch and highly reflective, allowing Rhys to spy his combed blonde hair and steel blue eyes from its frontward paneling.

Too preoccupied with his own thoughts, Rhys didn't notice himself tracing along the side of the craft, hand running across the conical Nubian-type sublight engines, over the ionization chamber encased in a newly replaced yellow shell, and ending with an elongated pole that served as a heat sink finial. The same features could be found mirrored on the other, with the crescent shape of the middle there to offset them both. His eyes would continue to trace over the shape of the ship for a time, until a question finally echoed his way from beneath the ship.

"So what do you think about this Gungan you're gonna be paired up with anyways?" Reti's voice underlined by the soft burble of fuel filling the ship's tank.

Rhys gave a shrug in response, slumping back over to the same crated box of supplies he had inhabited earlier.

"Tough to say. Everybody I've talked to props the guy up like some sort of warhero, but I've met this _other guy_ they do the same thing to at a banquet that the Queen invited Bravo Flight to a couple weeks ago, 'Jim-Jim Links', or something like that. Guy accidentally managed to shatter a chandelier with his tongue and two forks... I was impressed by his efficiency, but if this new guy's anything like that one I don't exactly have high hopes for him when it comes to something as precise as piloting a spacecraft."

There was a pause as Reti scooted out from beneath the starcraft, wiping his munchkin-like hands with a towel.

"I don't know Rhys, rumor has it the guy held out against a whole convoy of droids near the end of the Invasion."

"Yeah?"

_Well so did I..._

The Toydarian was seemingly left hanging on his rhetorical question, waiting a few more annoyed seconds before continuing.

"_Yeah_... So, where's this little training op being held anyways?"

Rhys paused for a moment, his brain not having to scour too far to obtain the information.

"Widow's Valley."

"Wait, you don't mean-"

"Yup," Rhys interrupted, having already anticipated the question,"the same place we made all those midnight munition runs during the Invasion, and the same place that me and..."

"Maaaaan," Reti breathed out, ignoring Rhys' trailing off a moment before. His eyes seemed to glaze over slightly upon receiving the information, as if the mere thought took him back years.

"Reti, that was like three months ago. You're acting like those were _good_ times or something."

"Sorry," Reti said with a shake of his head, slowly bringing himself back into the moment. "I was just thinking about how much faster my ship could make that canyon run now."

"Oh yeah, what'd you say about upgrades?... Something about a second cupholder, right?" Rhys asked in response, only partially kidding.

"That was _part_ of it, Rhys. Part. I've made plenty of other enhancements since then. Heck, even got the HUD working properly again now."

Rhys' snide expression fell away for a moment, replaced by a helping of humored disbelief.

"You're kidding."

"Any Toydarian worth his wings would never kid when it comes to tech!"

"Who'd you have to scam to get the parts this time?"

Reti acted affronted by the implication, but a crooked smile soon played across his gray lips.

"Nobody! Not this time, anyways. Just talked up a Twi'lek, told 'em I had a ship that was faster than anything the Royal Fleet had to offer, and -"

"Reti, _come on," _Rhys quickly interjected, realizing that the mechanic was about to go on a very long tangent that he wasn't all that interested in hearing about,"Vana and I both know your ship's just some junk freighter that you leveled down with enough guns to lay waste to a small moon. I'll admit the thing packs a punch, but it probably couldn't even outclass my landspeeder, let alone one of our N-1s."

His three foot companion crossed his arms defiantly.

"You seriously challenging me to race my ship against your landspeeder?"

A smirk crept quietly onto Rhys' face.

"Only if you're self conscious enough about your ship to think you have to."

Reti was just about to raise his voice to counter when they were both interrupted by the hum of the Hangar's main doors receding into the ceiling. In doing so the Hangar's two inhabitants were left victim to the dewy chill of the outside world. A shimmering hull was just barely visible, disturbing the otherwise star-speckled sky.

Rhys shivered in response to the sight, tightening his flight jacket's grip around his body before shifting positions, allowing the approaching craft entry upon the main landing hub. It was a _B'zabuu_-class transport, a revelation in the SoroSuub Corporation's recent line of products, and presently one of the most expensive public transports that credits could buy. A series of overhead lights activated in celebration of the shuttle's arrival, temporarily blinding the duo already within, and serving as an annoying reminder that it could still be considered "morning" even without any trace of sunshine to be found.

With his eyes adjusted to the sudden change in lighting, Rhys quickly found why the shuttle was so exceedingly high priced. The craft boiled down to an elongated tube, its hull sharp and silver in tone, though a green strip was painted down the middle, evidently to indicate where the lower and upper levels split off. But these were details that Rhys offered only a cursory glance, it was the painting scrawled out on the underbelly of the approaching craft that he took most interest in. He had only a passing interest in the many acquatic creatures that graced Naboo's oceans, but even he could recognize the Opee Sea Killer that was scrawled out in red paint on the belly of the craft.

Rhys kept his eyes trained on the image as the craft allowed its three pairs of landing claws to unfold, followed soon thereafter by the craft's central boarding ramp. The familiar stern and balding figure of Ric Olie, more often referred to as Bravo Leader, was first to exit. Next came a trio of Gungans, the first was heavyset and short, garbed in a pair of thickly woven robes. It was someone Rhys very quickly recognized as the Gungan monarch Boss Nass. Two more Gungans flanked his sides, both considerably taller than their leader. The one on his right was also dressed in robes, but his were purple in color, an uninterested look adorning his face. The one on Nass' left was in strong contrast to other two, wearing oil-ridden overalls with a pair of flight goggles strapped to his scaly forehead to reinforce the fact that he was the vessel's pilot.

"You jealous?" Reti murmured with a gesture towards the expensive vessel, its four departed passengers quickly approaching them. Rhys stopped himself from scoffing at the question, realizing how smug such an action would appear. Still, there was no reason for him to reasonably be jealous of the group Gungans approaching him... Even if said Gungans were flying a craft that could fly circles around most anything in the Royal Fleet.

Not much more time was spent marveling at the ship though, not with the quartet of new arrivals standing just meters away from Rhys. Offering a firm salute first to his captain, he then turned and gave a quick bow in acknowledgement of Boss Nass and his two fellow Gungans.

Already in midconversation with the trio of Gungans, Bravo Leader halted the others before gesturing to him. "And this is Rhys Dallows, one of our finest pilots. He'll be the one that accompanies you during your flight drills today, Toba. Would you like to say anything to him, Bravo Ten?"

Rhys nodded before turning to the triad, only to realize that Bravo Leader had failed to indicate which Gungan was which, leaving the disgruntled pilot to make the determinationon his own. Cursing silently at his luck, he weighed his options, coming to the rather obvious conclusion that Toba was one of the two flanking Boss Nass. The one on his right seemed the less likely option, even while wearing some flight attire Rhys figured the being looked too unkept, likely just the vessel's designated pilot, and given his awestruck face it appeared to be his first time land-side. Rhys felt safe in assuming this wasn't the storied warhero he had heard so much about. Turning instead to the one in purple robes, he gave him a soft smile.

"It's a honor to finally meet you sir. I've heard a great deal about your actions during the Battle of the Great Plains."

The Gungan's eye seemed to twitch slightly at the greeting, though he did not speak.

"Er, actually Rhys, that would be Prince Dun-Tar, nephew of Boss Nass, and future heir to the Gungan Throne... He's simply here to observe our proceedings here today."

He looked at Bravo Leader, then at Dun-Tar, then at the real Toba, then back to Bravo Leader.

"_Oh_."

This was unexpected. Yet again Rhys found himself on the wrong end of a guess, for whatever reason assuming the warhero would've aimed to look more presentable during the duo's groundbreaking mission. After all, this would be the first time a Human and a Gungan would be flying together under a circumstance that wasn't necessitated by war. Then again, this Gungan did seem to be more in line with the species' other proclaimed warhero, 'Jim-Jim Links', the one that he had met at the banquet.

_They must like 'em tall and scrawny..._

Appreciative for the fact that he hadn't uttered these innuendo-filled words out loud, it only then dawned on him that he was still staring inaudibly at the two starkly contrasting figures.

"Um, please forgive the confusion on my part."

Boss Nass smiled warmly in response.

"There'sa no need for apologies, wessen mistaken you outlanders for each other all the time."

"Well... That's a relief."

Bravo Leader cleared his throat then, obviously none too pleased with the twist their current conversation had taken. "Right. Well your majesty, I must say I'm very impressed with your people's transport. It certainly lives up to all the praise I've heard about it."

"Wessa liken it a lot too," the Gungan Leader admitted simply. If Rhys hadn't been so intent on maintaining his professionalism in front of the others, a chuckle likely would've poured from his lips. For whatever reason he had expected Boss Nass to sound more regal in his responses.

If Bravo Leader was feeling at all the same way, he was doing a great job of not showing it, instead keeping his gaze trained on the Gungan's vessel. "I'll be eager to see how well it does during the flight run today."

Rhys' face dropped at the implication. He wasn't just about to let the Gungan's shiny new toy disrupt a centuries-long tradition of the N-1, and its many predecessors, from being Naboo's sole attack fighter. If Toba wanted to run Bravo Flight's training circuit, it was only natural to expect him to do it flying one of Bravo Flight's starfighters.

"The Queen and her fellow Ambassadors should be arriving shortly, for now I encourage you to explore the Hangar Bay, any of the roaming mechanics will be happy to answer your questions, as there's quite a bit to see," Bravo Leader finished.

The three Gungans made their leave, dispersing throughout the Hangar with Toba at the groups head. Rhys and Bravo Leader stayed in their respective places, watching the group drift apart from each other. After a few more moments of silence Rhys finally decided to test his luck.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

The Captain made one of his trademark 'this can't be good' faces before sighing. "Granted."

"All due respect, but that flashy transport is just a big maneuverable-less rig without much firepower on it. Unless the goal is for Toba to to kill the enemy with kindness and crash while doing it he's probably gonna need a smaller bird."

While the "enemy" in this case would be a series of holodrones, Bravo Leader was not one to take any advice lightly.

"Are you suggesting we give him one of ours, Bravo Ten?"

The younger pilot squirmed awkwardly in place for a moment.

"Considering the eventual plan is to move them over to our style of craft anyways, yes sir... Begrudgingly," Rhys explained, placing extra emphasis on the last part.

"Hm..." his superior hummed, hand scratching the beginnings of a beard as his grey eyes scanned the length of the hangar for a replacement craft. His gaze continued searching for awhile, often coming back to one craft in particular before shifting his line of sight again. Finally, he gave a resigned sigh.

"That one," he said, pointing back to the N-1 he had kept passing over.

_"That one? _But, sir -"

"That's _my_ decision, Dallows. Besides, it's not like we can just keep it locked up in here forever, especially without a pilot to contest it."

That was no valid argument in Rhys' book.

"Sir! _You know_ she would -"

"All I know," the Captain interrupted with annoyance clear in his tired voice,"is that you suggested giving the Gungan another starcraft, and when I decided to give him another fighter you start protesting it. Now, I don't know about _you_ Dallows, but that all just seems a little ass backwards to me."

Rhys raised his voice to counter, but no counter came. He knew there was unlikely to be anything he could say that would change the captain's mind.

"Besides," Bravo Leader continued,"the thing has a closer control layout to his shuttle than anything else we've got. I'm going to go get some mechs to start prepping it, I want you to go and inform Toba about all this. Try and introduce yourself, sparking a little team camaraderie before you two get up in the air can't hurt."

"... Yes sir," the younger pilot answered, finally resigning himself to the Gungan induced horrors still to come.

"Safe travels, Bravo Ten. I want to see 'em both fully intact when you two get back here."

"I'll do my best, sir."

Rhys kept his tone steady, but swallowed hard as Bravo Leader turned away.

_We'll see how far "my best" can get us..._

That morose thought and Wrench's ever constant presence at his side were all he had to keep him company on his brisk journey back over to Toba. Spying a lanky form he raised his voice to speak, but that had been before he could note the Gungan's elegant posture and purple tinted robes. Yet his voice had spoken before his mind could halt him, and he found himself saying, "Hi again, Toba. Bravo Leader just - Oh."

"That's twice now you've mistaken me for Toba, Mr. Dallows," Dun-Tar drawled out in a surprisingly Basic-sounding accent. Rhys was far too busy formulating an apology to marvel at this.

"My apologies, I would never do that intentionally... Just a coincidence is all."

"'Coincidence'," the Gungan mocked him in a regal tone. "That's a fool's word for conspiracy... Coincidence is allowing one's planet to be invaded, and somehow still having the... _naivety_ to assume it won't happen again. I believe in many things Mr. Dallows, but coincidence is not one..."

"And neither should you," he finally noted. Their eyes met for a moment, swampy emeralds scouring his orbs of sapphire. Rhys hid his surprise at the sudden rant as best he could. He figured the Prince would be a little displeased to find he had mistaken him for Toba... again, but somehow twisting it all into a commentary on the Invasion had been far from expected.

"I don't think anyone's assuming we _can't_ be invaded again, sir. In fact, this joint flight operation between our people seems like a real attempt to unite our people and prepare ourselves if such a thing were to happen again."

Rhys paused there, almost expecting the Prince to make another comment on some foolish way he had phrased things.

"As far as figuring the difference between coincidence from conspiracy, I think I can do that well enough on my own, but... I'm grateful for your suggestion," Rhys offered, tacking on the last bit almost as an afterthought.

The Prince responded to this with another nod of his head.

"But of course, you Naboo have always had your own way of doing things."

And as Rhys would later find out, so to did Dun-Tar. Still, there were more pressing matters on his agenda - namely that of finding wherever Toba had disappeared off to. Bidding his farewell to the Prince, he began branching farther out in search of Toba, finally noting that the Gungan pilot had drifted towards one of the craft parked nearest to the _B'zabuu_-class transport, this being one of the Queen's three Royal Transports. The warhero's pools of grey sweeped across its chromium exterior, tracing over the oblong shape of the craft.

"She's a beauty, isn't she?" Rhys asked as he stepped up next to the proper Gungan.

"She?" Toba asked, chewing on the singular word for a moment. Though with the way Gungans "chewed", Rhys found it difficult to distinguish when they were talking, when they were eating, and when they were doing a mix of both.

"It's a term we use... I'm talking about the ships when I say it," Rhys explained to him with a sigh. If the exchange was anything to go off of, there would be an obvious language barrier plaguing them the rest of their flight drill. This would be a very interesting day.

Appreciating the silence that erupted as they both continued to examine the vessel's exterior, Rhys knew he couldn't last much quickly motioned for the younger pilot to come along with him, the two walking in another bout of silence for the majorty of the path.

"If you liked that one, you're probably gonna be happy with what we'll be running our flight drill with today," Rhys noted as the two took a turbolift up towards the second floor of the Hangar.

Soon enough they were upon the craft as requested by Bravo Leader, a N-1 starcraft same as the dozens of others spaced throughout the Hanger. His hand traced over its freshly painted hull, hiding evidence of skirmishes hard fought, and promises he had long since broken...

But here he stood anyways, always the dutiful soldier. The guy who had scraped by in flight school, assigned to the Queen's Royal Escort long before he was ready, led into battle by one of the best to ever fly with Bravo Flight. Someone who he had failed. Someone who had...

**_"No! Essaara! Nooo!"_**

His eyes snapped shut for a moment, shaking his mind clear of the all too clear inferno still bathed within his memory. Another deep inhale of oxygen was taken before he looked back up to the Gungan.

"Think you can handle it?" Rhys asked, reiterating a question he had just asked himself mentally.

Toba adjusted his flight goggles, straightening to his full height, nearly a head taller than Rhys.

"Yessa, I thinken I can handle she."

"... Her," Rhys quickly corrected before shaking his head. "Just take good care of her, alright? She really means a lot to the fleet."

And, as Rhys had come to realize some three months earlier, even more to him.


End file.
